Dr Klist’s directive to the original Phoenix team clearly did not anticipate that they might become independently ambitious. According to the rediscovered charter documents, their objectives were meant to be twofold: to maximise the commercial potential of the genome, yes, but equally to find a way to allow the Phoenix to reproduce. His notes indicate that early attempts at cloning her failed. However there is no indication of any outstanding ability possessed by this female phenotype that would explain the desire to simply replicate her unmodified; still less to produce viable ova, and thus circumvent her native infertility.
So the motivation behind this aspect of the Phoenix Project remains a mystery. Dr Klist left a sealed protocol to be followed in the event of success, but no explanation. I confess I can understand why the researchers became increasingly focused on pursuing the more interesting, and more lucrative, avenues of enquiry presented by so remarkable a mutation, and why this trend became the norm as years and decades passed. Dr Klist’s other priority would have become increasingly remote as the original researchers retired and new ones arrived; to the extent that this objective of Phoenix appears to have become forgotten.
Eli leaned back, rubbing his eyes, and tried to think through whether what he was learning about the nested-doll history of Bel’Natur had any relevance at all to the task Aryel had set him. It was becoming clear that this had been a particularly strange episode, and that efforts had been made to delete all records of it – but whether that cleansing had been ancient, from before the KAG datastream had even been placed in Bel’Natur’s archives, or was of a more recent vintage he could not tell. He was following a trail of ghosts, imperfectly resurrected from a digital graveyard, and he had to admit it was the mystery of the thing that intrigued him.
Part of that mystery was why they had been resurrected at all; he was no master programmer, and his standard-issue searchbots should not have been able to reconstruct whole communications from shreds of data. Had the Phoenix correspondence been trashed but not wiped, were the bots struggling to pick related bits from some invisible midden of Bel’Natur detritus? There must be an explanation for the ephemeral nature of the ancient messages; it had thrown him badly, the way the files he closed after reading more often than not disappeared as though they had never been. Some popped open again when he frantically entered search terms composed of half-remembered phrases, others did not. But format conversions and name changes had finally done the trick with those he did pin down: allowed him to mirror copies to his private stream so he could access them again. He could only assume that the deletion process itself had somehow undermined the safeguards that would normally prevent files being copied offsite.
He had grabbed as many as he could that way, focusing first on preservation and deferring consideration of the contents, until Callan’s worried face in the corner of his vision told him it was time to go; and had then sent up a silent prayer, that he would be able to find his way back in on their return tomorrow. He hoped for that even more strongly now. The story he had unravelled so far, mostly told in fussy, verbose reportage from the unknown Jonah Wycliffe and punctuated occasionally by acerbic responses from the equally unfamiliar Zara Klist, was tantalising in its incompleteness; it felt as though he were reading some gripping pre-Syndrome thriller, and had had to pause halfway through.
So twenty years earlier, more or less, KAG Labs had discovered that its founder had left behind more than a Nobel Prize, the gratitude of a planet and the foundations of early gemtech. Eli knew of Jarek Klist of course. Every schoolchild learned by rote the names of the scientists who had saved them from the Syndrome: a modernday communion of saints. He knew too that the current chief executive of Bel’Natur was descended from the legendary geneticist, but he had never heard of Zara. If Jarek was her great-uncle she would be what to Zavcka, a second cousin once removed? So there was no more than a generation’s difference between them. Zara and Zavcka must know each other. The older woman had been at the helm of KAG when the Phoenix Project came to light, judging from the memos between her and Wycliffe. But it seemed she was not long to remain; filetags suggested that the messages had been deposited in the Bel’Natur archive within a year of being sent. Had the outgoing leader got her younger relative a job with the megacorp to whom she had just sold the family business? Perhaps Zavcka had inherited some sort of sinecure? If so she had certainly made the most of it.
He shook his head sharply. Focus.
Zavcka would know that her family’s heritage was woven into the fabric of the company she now commanded, but it did not follow that she knew about Phoenix. Or that it was more significant than any other sordid, secret project in the tarnished history of gemtech. But what had happened to it, and what indeed had become of Zara?
He could learn no more from reading the correspondence yet again. He tapped up another searchbot and began to look for Zara Klist.
*
He was almost ready to go to meet Herran and Callan outside Maryam House the next morning when Aryel came in over his earset, sounding weary.
‘Eli, I’m so sorry. I should have got back to you last night …’
‘Don’t worry about it. How’s Rhys?’
‘The news is bad, but he seems okay. He’s dealing with it better than the rest of us. Gwen’s been in a state, Reginald isn’t much better. I think it’s just hit, you know? How serious his condition is.’
‘Can’t they do anything?’
‘They’re trying. He’s staying calm and rational about the whole thing, but I’m not sure we’re helping. Things were a bit fraught. He finally got away – I don’t blame him – and went to spend the night with Callan. The rest of us stayed up late talking round and round and round it.’
‘Callan’s not going to want to come in today, is he? That’s okay, I can take Herran on my own, he’s communicating really well now. Or we could just skip it, take the day off. That might be better.’ He felt a pang of regret at the thought of the delay.
‘I think you’ll find Callan ready and waiting. Rhys is back here now. Somehow in the middle of everything he managed to make a breakthrough in Sharon’s case and he’s working on tying up loose ends.’ She paused as though considering whether to say more, and evidently decided against it. ‘He says the distraction is helpful.’
‘He ought to take it easy.’
‘Yes, that’s what we all keep telling him. He says surely we have better things to do than stand over him, fussing.’
‘Is there any way I can help?’
‘Tell me what you called to tell me last night. I could use some distraction myself.’
He explained about the searchbots and the mystery they had unearthed, read her some of the messages. There was a sharp intake of breath at the subject of the memos, a small sound of incredulity at who they had been written to. Then a silence far too intense for mere polite attention.
When he stopped there was a long, long pause before she spoke.
‘Eli, you don’t know how important … I’ve been trying to find out what happened to KAG Labs for years. And this discovery they made, this secret project, it was called Phoenix? You’re sure?’
‘Yes. Why, does that mean anything to you?’
She was talking over him, a thing she almost never did, not hearing or not answering his question. ‘And KAG didn’t know about it? Seriously?’
‘Seriously. Up until the date of these memos, KAG thought Phoenix was just an obscure little lab out in the wilderness that every now and then offered them some really innovative R&D. They apparently didn’t know they were supposed to get exclusive access to its findings. Even though it was nominally deeded to the corporation, it was also shielded from any interference or oversight. Funding was via an endowment that Jarek Klist set up before he died.’
‘So, until these memos, KAG wouldn’t have been aware of what Phoenix was up to.’
‘Not beyond what the researchers saw fit to sell back to them via the arm’s-length arrangement Jarek created.’
‘I see.’ Another long beat. He imagined her blue eyes narrowed in thought, the absentminded nibbling at the inside of her lip. ‘How was it discovered, in the end? How did they find out?’
‘By accident. It seems the Phoenix people wanted to expand the facility, and the reply to their application got copied to KAG. Who of course had no idea they were a trustee of the property until that point. The whole thing unravelled pretty quickly from there.’
A short, musical laugh in his ear. ‘Municipal bureaucracy uncovers gemtech black lab. How delightful. What happened then?’
‘I don’t know. That’s as much as I was able to get before we had to leave. I’m going to see if I can find out more today. But Aryel, all this stuff is more than twenty years old. I mean, whatever Phoenix was up to, however bad it was, it doesn’t tell us anything about Bel’Natur, then or now. It’s interesting, but it isn’t the part that’s important.’
‘I’m not sure about that,’ she murmured. ‘But tell me the part you think is important.’
‘I’ve been trying to find out about Zara Klist. The woman who was in charge of KAG when Phoenix came to light.’
‘What about her?’
‘It seemed strange that I’d never heard of her, given how famous the Klist name is. I’d always thought that KAG Labs folded after Jarek Klist died, but it turns out it went on for another twentyfive years …’
‘That much I did know.’
‘Did you? Well … then you probably know they increasingly focused on core research, in vitro splices and sequences, just a link in the gemtech supply chain. Solid, but not spectacular. A big departure from the ethos it had when Jarek was around.’
‘And you think that was down to Zara Klist?’
‘Not just Zara. Jarek had a daughter, another Zavcka, who worked with her father for many years until she was killed in a skiing accident. Some time later her daughter, Zytka, joins granddad Jarek. He’s in his eighties by then. Zytka runs the company alongside him, just as her mother did, and takes over after his death. It would appear that Zytka is our Zavcka’s grandmother.’
Stone silence on the earset. ‘Aryel?’
‘I’m here. Where does Zara fit into this?’
‘She appears to come from a South African branch of the family – Jarek had a brother who went out there as a young man. I remember reading a print interview with Jarek while I was a student, from when he won the Nobel Prize. He was talking about his grief at how his brother’s family was devastated by the Syndrome, and I’d got the impression that no one had survived. But clearly someone did, because a hundred years later up pops Zara and takes over KAG.’
‘From Zytka?’
‘No, from a caretaker board. There appear to have been provisions that kicked in whenever there wasn’t a Klist available. So Zytka steps down after fifteen years or so, they run things for a while, and then Zara shows up.’
‘Interesting. I take it Zara disappears after the sale of KAG?’
‘Not right away. She sticks around for a year or two as a Bel’Natur board member before she resigns and returns to Africa.’
‘And the current Zavcka?’
‘The current Zavcka shows up on the Bel’Natur executive management team around ten years ago. She’s notoriously private: apart from what’s on her CV no one knows much about her. And that is pretty much all I could find out on any of them.’
‘Curiouser and curiouser.’ Yet another meditative pause. ‘What do you think it means, Eli?’
‘I … honestly, Aryel, I don’t know if it means anything. The Klist patriarch clearly set things up to ensure a member of his family would always have the top job in the company he founded. Nothing too strange about that, but it bothers me that there is so little sign of them anywhere else. I tracked down a few records, just enough to verify marriages, births and deaths, but I couldn’t find anything deeper than that. Anything personal. Or social. There are a few business-related mentions, but nothing that’s purely about them. There’re hardly even any pictures. I found a few of Zavcka the First, mostly taken in company with her father, and there’ve been more of Zavcka the Second since she took over Bel’Natur. But the only ones I could find of the others were a media shot of Zytka at Jarek’s funeral, and a portrait of the Bel’Natur board of directors during the time Zara was a member. Even their husbands don’t seem to have much of a life onstream. Hardly any pictures or posts from them either.’
‘Is it only husbands? I mean, are all the Klists women?’
‘It appears so. There’s no mention of any of them having sons.’
‘Do they look alike?’
He was confused for a moment, as much by the urgency in her tone as the question. ‘You mean the women?’
‘Yes, the women. Zavcka the First, Zytka, Zara, Zavcka the Second. Do they resemble each other?’
‘Not really. Well, hang on.’ He flipped through the images on his tablet. ‘Come to think of it, they do. Different hair colours, but the faces are very similar.’
‘Can you send me what you’ve found?’
‘Sure.’ He tapped up her comcode. ‘On its way. Apart from the fetish about female names starting with Z, the thing I can’t wrap my head around is how does a dynasty as rich and powerful as the Klists go through generation after generation and leave so little trace of themselves behind? That doesn’t just happen. It feels intentional.’
‘I’m sure it is.’
‘But why? What are they hiding? I always thought Zavcka’s reclusiveness – our Zavcka, Zavcka the Second – was just a quirk. Now it looks like a strategy, one that’s been maintained for over a century. And I can’t imagine any good reasons for that.’
‘Do you think it has anything to do with the Phoenix Project?’
He bit back the reflexive dismissal, and reminded himself that Aryel Morningstar never asked stupid questions.
‘Well, it obviously started long before the secret lab came to light – wait, you mean maybe Zara wasn’t really surprised? Something like it might even still be going on?’
‘I don’t know yet either, Eli. But I think you’re right to worry.’ Her voice had gone reflective, tired again, a little sad. ‘Let me think about it, see if I can come up with anything else. And … and if you learn anything more about Phoenix, please come and talk to me.’
22
Sharon kept her smile tight and hard, and as devoid of amusement as a training sergeant on examination day. She knew that the sleepless night had left lines and shadows around her eyes, and counted it an advantage for this particular interview. Let there be no illusions about just how much trouble her guest was in.
He did not look much better; few people arrested before dawn and taken into custody without the benefit of shower, shave or coffee did. She could see, in the way he twitched against his rumpled shirt and ran his hand over a chinful of stubble, all the while glancing at the silent young witnessing officer who stood at the rear of the room, that he was trying to work some sympathy out of his state of general dishevelment. The façade of embattled and indignant innocence had been fairly well kept up, but cracks were beginning to show.
Sharon rested her hands on the table, absentmindedly flicking a thumb against the curve of her wedding ring before she noticed the motion and stilled it.
‘Tell me about the genestock.’
‘What about it? I don’t know anything, I told you. I didn’t even know it was missing until you showed up.’ Combative as before, and with the same air of disdain; but there was a touch, just the faintest shred, of fear about him now. She knew he would be trying hard to conceal it.
‘Come now, Mr Nance. If anyone was in a position to know everything about it, including how to remove it without triggering the alarms, it’s you. The only reason you took the job in the first place was in order to steal the genestock, isn’t that right?’
The barest flicker of recognition before his face went back to a carefully blank hostility, but it was enough. She knew she had him.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Why did you conceal your previous employment?’
‘I’ve never lied about where I used to work. And anyway, it’s not like it was illegal.’
‘It might have had some bearing on whether the EGA decided you were the right person to install their security and run their operations.’
‘I never worked for Bel’Natur.’
‘Let’s not get bogged down in technicalities. They owned the business, they funded the operations, they were the primary client.’
‘There’s nothing illegal about that.’
‘So you agree that you did work for them.’
‘No, I said—’ A pause. He would be replaying the conversation, trying to avoid catching himself in a contradiction.
Sharon made her smile even flintier and pressed the advantage. ‘I wouldn’t want you to get confused, Mr Nance, so let’s recap what we know, shall we? You earned an extremely generous bonus payment during your final year, really remarkable considering that human gemtech had been severely curtailed, the Declaration was about to be issued, and Bel’Natur was in deep financial and legal trouble. But you helped them out in turn. You used those funds to buy out the subsidiary you worked for, transitioning its intellectual property and technical expertise into a new firm under a new name, a firm in which you had a major stake. You then won the contract to set up the EGA’s integrated datastream and security systems, based largely on, and I’m quoting here, “remarkable insight into the inherent weaknesses which the Archive must be aware of, and the potential threats against which it must remain vigilant”. The irony of that statement is really quite breathtaking.’
Binary Page 23